Pashtunistan
From Freepedia
Pashtunistan is what many Pashtun nationalists call the Pashtun-dominated areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Pashtuns in Afghanistan are the largest ethnic group in the country and are concentrated in the south and east, but nationalists have often included all of Afghanistan as part of Pashtunistan or "Greater Afghanistan" as Pashtun is synonymous for Afghan even though not all Afghans in Afghanistan are of Pashtun origin. The Pakistani (and formerly British Indian) part of Pashtunistan comprises an area that runs from Chitral (where Pashtuns are a growing minority in the north of Pakistan) to Sibi (in the southwest) and intentionally includes the ethnically mixed region of Baluchistan and parts of the Gilgit Agency of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (known as the Northern Areas) are also often included. The Pashtun majority areas in western Pakistan include the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the northern portion of Baluchistan with a large group also found in the Gilgit Agency. The main language spoken in the Pashtunistan region is Pashto, but substantial numbers of Tajik Persian speakers can also be found throughout the Pashtun regions of Afghanistan and western Pakistan where many Afghan refugees have established permanent roots. Thus, Pashtunistan can be defined in various ways depending upon the point of view of the political group involved. Pashtunistan can simply mean a Greater Afghanistan that includes all of Afghanistan and western Pakistan or it can refer to Pashtun majority areas in both Afghanistan and Pakistan or it can also simply be a reference to western Pakistan as a hypothetical Pashtunistan either as an independent state or affiliated with Afghanistan.
Pashtunistan in History
Historically, Pashtuns have rarely been united and, although sharing a common language and belief in being related to one another, did not achieve unity until the 18th century CE. An early Pashtun nationalist was the Pashtun "warrior-poet" Khushal Khan Khattak who was imprisoned by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb for trying to incite the Pashtuns to rebel against the rule of the Mughals. The first Afghan empire (see Durrani Empire) of Ahmad Shah Durrani, which was established in 1747 and encompassed the Pashtun areas, would unite the Pashtuns until conflicts with the encroaching British Empire led to the eventual dismemberment of Pashtunistan/Afghanistan.
Following the decline of the Durrani Empire, the Pashtun domains began to shrink as they lost control of the regions now in Pakistan to the Sikhs, Baluchis, Persians, and ultimately the British. The British arrived in the middle of the 19th century and the Pashtunistan region became an area of importance for both the British and the Russians. The Anglo-Afghan wars were fought as part of the overall imperialistic Great Game that was waged between the Russian Empire and the British and the Afghans found their territories greatly diminished as a result of border adjustments made as a result of British peace terms. During the reign of the Afghan "Iron" Amir Abdur Rahman, in the late 19th century CE, the Afghans reluctantly gave up nearly half of the Pashtun territories to the British. It is possible that Abdur Rahman viewed the so-called Durand Line as a temporary arrangement rather than a permanent settlement and is known to have vocally despised the agreement and bitterly resented the British for it. Nonetheless, the British finalized the agreement as part of their permanent political border with Afghanistan.
In 1901 the North-West Frontier Province was created and roughly corresponded to Pashtun majority regions within the British domain and seemed to indicate the permanence of the border from the British point of view. The Federally Administered Tribal Areas was created to further placate the Pashtun tribesmen who never fully accepted British rule and were prone to rebellions, while Peshawar was directly administered as part of a British protectorate state with semi-autonomy. Considerable self-rule did not extinguish the desire for independence and re-unification with Afghanistan. The so-called "Red Shirts" led by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan agitated for an independent Pashtunistan, but also willingly cooperated with the National Congress in India, mainly to remove British rule. The Red Shirts were a non-violent group and Ghaffar Khan openly claimed to have been inspired by Gandhi. While the Red Shirts were willing to work with Indian politicians, some Pashtuns desired independence from both India and the newly created state of Pakistan following the departure of the British. However, there was no option that included independence or merger with Afghanistan and when given a choice between Pakistan and India, most voters chose Pakistan by a margin of 9 to 1 in 1947. A loya jirga in the Tribal Areas garnered a similar result as most preferred to become part of Pakistan.
The Pashtunistan issue was inherited by the new state of Pakistan and would cause diplomatic problems with Afghanistan. Afghanistan was the only country that voted against Pakistan's inclusion in the U.N. Assembly. While both countries showed a willingness to discuss the Durand Line, a brief period of calm was shattered in 1949 following a tribal uprising supported by Afghanistan on the Pakistani side of the border. The Pakistani military allegedly bombed a Pashtun village in Afghanistan during the conflict and this led to deteriorating relations between the two countries. The Afghan government responded to the incident with a declaration that it found the Durand Line agreement of 1893 to be null and void and this prompted some measure of hostile relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Afghan Pashtun tribes crossed the Durand Line from Afghanistan to openly combat the Pakistani military from 1950 to 1951 and diplomatic relations were briefly severed during this tense period. Relations were resumed in 1951, but the issue remained unresolved. During the increasingly global struggle known as the Cold War, the United States formed the Baghdad Pact which included Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and the UK as a bulwark against a perceived Soviet threat towards the Persian Gulf region. The Soviets had established closer ties to Afghanistan in 1955 and during a state visit by Soviet Premier Nikolay A. Bulganin, the USSR declared that it supported the right to self-determination of Pashtunistan. In-spite of this situation, relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan warmed during much of the 1950s, but the issue returned to the forefront in 1961 and continued to hamper ties until 1967. During the 1970s the Pashtunistan issue continued to flare up and the National Awami Party in Pakistan championed the cause politically. The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and civil war in Afghanistan sidelined the issue which remains a cause championed by small pockets of Pashtun nationalists in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, but with diminished support.
Social issues and concepts surrounding Pashtunistan
Prominent 20th century proponents of the Pashtunistan cause have included the late Khan Wali Khan and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Khan Wali Khan, who founded the National Awami League, is remembered for having eloquently replied to a Pakistani critic of the Pashtunistan cause, who asked him if he considered himself a Pakistani Muslim first or a Pashtun, by stating that: "I have been a Pashtun for six thousand years, a Muslim for thirteen hundred years, and a Pakistani for twenty-five." This has become an oft repeated sentence by Pashtun nationalists and even other secessionist minded ethnic leaders in Pakistan.
While some Pashtun intellectuals continue to champion the Pashtunistan cause, independent Pashtun tribes have expressed an identity that is often relegated to their tribal affiliation rather than nationality in the modern sense or even overall ethnic solidarity with other Pashtuns. In addition, Pashtuns in Afghanistan have undergone considerable "Persianization" as part of a country where Persian remains an important universal language, while in Pakistan many Pashtuns have become bilingual in the national language of Pakistan's schools, Urdu. The divide between Afghan and Pakistani Pashtuns was bridged during the Soviet invasion and subsequent civil wars in Afghanistan as millions of Afghan refugees moved to Pakistan's border region. This served to re-establish cultural ties and Pashtun identity, but has not extinguished tribal affiliation amongst Pashtuns. Given the current rebuilding status of Afghanistan and increasing Pashtun demographics and power within Pakistan itself, the Pashtunistan issue has become dormant in recent years. The so-called "war on terror" has served to also unite many of the Pashtun tribes on both sides of the border against perceived outside interference in their affairs and Pashtuns in both Pakistan and Afghanistan are believed to have been strong supporters of the Pashtun-dominated Taliban. With the election of the ethnic Pashtun President Hamid Karzai, the Pashtunistan issue has actually lost much of its support in Afghanistan where a formidable alliance of Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras is very resistant to any notion of Pashtunistan as that would further dilute their numbers and political clout within Afghanistan if Pashtunistan was somehow re-united with Afghanistan. Similarly, an independent Pashtunistan is opposed by eastern Pakistanis who have come to rely upon the marital prowess of Pashtuns in the military, including former leaders such as Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan. Given the fact that Pashtuns have retained their language and wield considerable political influence on both sides of the Durand Line at present, the issue has lost much of its previous impetus.
Pashtuns practice Pashtunwali/Pakhtunwali, the indigenous culture of the Pashtuns, and this pre-Islamic identity remains significant for many Pashtuns and is one of the factors that have kept the Pashtunistan issue alive. Although the Pashtuns are separated by the arbitrarily drawn Durand Line between Afghanistan and Pakistan, many Pashtuns, especially tribesmen, tend to ignore the border and cross back and forth with relative disregard. The Pashtunistan issue may never be resolved, but is not a serious problem at present.
